E-911 technology would benefit dispatchers, callers

Posted: Saturday, June 03, 2006

Oglethorpe County public safety workers might soon have an easier time of finding people who call 911 on a cell phone and can't or won't say where they are.

If the Oglethorpe County Commission votes to go ahead with the plan, the new technology will allow emergency dispatchers to find out the number of a cell phone that called 911 and the location of communications tower that is handling the call.

The commission held a public hearing on the proposed addition last month, and is set to vote on it at a June 12 meeting.

It's going to cost cell phone customers an extra $1 a month on their phone bill, and the fee eventually would rise to $1.50 to implement a second phase of the emergency locator program, said Commission Chairman Robert Johnson.

Under a 1998 Georgia law, cell phone companies are required to collect the fees from customers who live in counties that decide to use the technology, then transfer the money to county governments.

Johnson said he hoped to see fee collections begin as early as July or August.

When the second phase is installed, Oglethorpe dispatchers will be able to get a much closer fix on where 911 cell phone calls are coming from, said Sue Wall, director of Oglethorpe County E-911.

That's because the system will be able to tap into global positioning system technology now required in all cell phones sold in the United States. The technology allows emergency workers to pinpoint within about 300 yards where a cell phone call is coming from.

The 911 system already can pinpoint the origin of calls made on land lines.

That's important, Wall said, because that gives public safety workers the ability to know where 911 hang-up calls come from so they can check for trouble. It also lets emergency workers respond to the right place when a caller can't give a precise location, like when a young child or a traveler unfamiliar with Oglethorpe County calls.

But 911 dispatchers can't track cell phone calls.

"A lot of times, it is a problem," said Howard Sanders, assistant director of emergency services in Oglethorpe County.

"It would definitely help out if we could," said Oglethorpe County Sheriff Mike Smith.

The inability hasn't cost a life yet, Wall said.

Though land lines still outnumber cell phones in the county, more than half the calls that come into the 911 center now are from mobile phones, and the percentage is increasing, Wall said.

There are between 6,500 and 7,000 land lines in the county, Wall said. She estimated the number of cell phones at between 4,500 and 5,000.

Cell phone use is so prevalent now, the center usually gets several cell phone calls when there's a traffic wreck or a fire visible from a road, she said.

The county won't have to buy any new computer hardware for the first step in the cell phone locator system, but the second phase will require new equipment, Wall said.

The second phase might be several years away, but it could begin sooner, when county officials plan to move the 911 call center to a new county jail under construction. The jail is due to open next year.

Johnson said county officials don't yet know how much it will cost to upgrade equipment to handle the second phase of cell phone tracking.

Part of the building is reserved for the county's emergency communications system. Much of the county's emergency communications equipment is outdated and needs replacing, however, Wall said.

It would be ideal to replace the outdated equipment when the department moves into the new jail, Johnson said. But the county will have to do a cost-benefit analysis before it makes a decision, he said.